Funniest actor in film history, true crime serial killer lovers, pet cemeteries featured in these gems.
Everyone has seen “The Godfather” and “Stars Wars.” (If you haven’t, rectify that immediately. Forget your final exams.)
But what about other, lesser-known greats? Here are a few films I adore that many people have not seen:
“It’s a Gift” (1934)
In the DVD set “W.C. Fields Comedy Favorites Collection” with nine of his other films ($12.98 on Amazon)
W.C. Fields is the best comic actor to ever appear in films, and his 68-minute film “It’s a Gift” is the funniest film ever made. He plays Harold Bissonette, a hen-pecked husband, father and grocery store owner in New Jersey. His wife Amelia (Kathleen Howard, a former opera singer) constantly belittles Harold, his son Norman (Tommy Bupp) and daughter Mildred (Jean Rouverol) have no respect for him, and his life is one calamity after another. Harold’s dream is to buy an orange ranch out in California and take his family out there to live. The film is chock-full of brilliant comic set pieces, including an extended scene where Harold tries to sleep outside on his porch and is interrupted by noisy neighbors, the milkman, runaway produce and a knife-wielding child upstairs. Some of the most hysterical lines in the film are uttered by Fields under his breath, and it takes repeated viewing to catch all of them. Fields made a career out of showcasing the drudgery and nuisance of American life, and “It’s a Gift,” along with “The Bank Dick,” are his greatest achievements. One reason I adore the film, besides the fact that it makes me laugh out loud so much it hurts, is because one actually has empathy for Harold. In most of Fields’ films, he is an alcoholic grouch who hates children, his wife and dogs, which are all true of his character in this film, too, but Harold is not the louse or crook he is in other films. He is usually to blame for the hardships and harassment he encounters. This married, working man is not a bad guy, but fate has decided to make everything an ordeal to him and comic gold for the audience. He wanted oranges, but life keeps giving him lemons.
“The Honeymoon Killers” (1969)
On Criterion Collection DVD, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime rental ($2.99).
Leonard Kastle’s first and only film is a black-and-white, low-budget crime drama based on the true story of the Lonely Hearts Killers. Raymond Fernandez (Tony Lo Bianco), a Spanish man, murdered as many as 20 women with his partner and lover Martha Beck (Shirley Stoler), an obese American nurse. While the film looks like a drive-in exploitation film with lots of the action taking place in simple rooms — almost with an Ed Wood-level of production design — it is actually beautifully shot with amazing cinematography and lighting. The story and the main couple’s relationship are so odd that the film is at times humorous, but the film is quite a disturbing look at serial killers, one of the best I’ve ever seen. Martin Scorsese actually began directing the film but was quickly fired because the producers did not have enough money for him to be a perfectionist. He spent hours trying to get a perfectly lit close-up of a coffee cup.
“Gates of Heaven” (1978)
On Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime rental ($2.99).
Errol Morris’s debut documentary is about two pet cemeteries in California, but it is about so much more. It says more about death, loneliness, companionship, American priorities and business than most narrative dramas. What feels like a Christopher Guest mockumentary is a legitimate documentary about the people who run the cemeteries and the people who have their dogs, cats and other pets interred there. Quietly hilarious, bizarrely fascinating and oddly profound, “Gates of Heaven” is a baffling, remarkable work of art. Film critic Roger Ebert once ranked the film as one of the 10 best films ever made.
“Close-Up” (1990)
On Criterion Collection Blu-ray and DVD and Hulu Plus.
Hossain Sabzian, an Iranian man who was separated from his wife and struggling to find work, conned a family into believing he was the film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf. He told them that he wanted to shoot his next film at their house and cast their son in a role. Eventually the family found out the man was an imposter, and he was arrested. The director of “Close-Up,” Abbas Kiarostami, read about this incident in the newspaper and went to the jail where Sabzian was imprisoned. He interviewed him and asked him why he did what he did. Kiarostami then got permission to film his actual court case. After that, astonishingly, he got the actual people involved in the case, including Sabzian, the family members and the journalist who wrote the original newspaper article, to play themselves and reenact scenes of the story as if they were in a narrative film. I was absolutely blown away by this masterpiece when I saw it. I knew nothing about the film going into it, and I could not take my eyes off the screen. The film is playful, funny, tragic, deceptive and lyrical. It constantly makes the audience question what is happening and blurs the line between documentary and narrative film and truth and fiction. Before the first scene in the courtroom, there is a brief shot of a slate board clapped in front of the camera.
Wait — if this is the real court case, there can only be one take, correct? When the film begins, the journalist is riding in a taxi to watch Sabzian be arrested. When the journalist and police go into the house, the viewer does not get to follow them into the house but instead stays outside with the taxi driver who picks through a pile of leaves and knocks a cylinder-shaped canister off. There is a long shot of the canister rolling down the hill that last at least a minute. Why is Kiarostami showing this instead of the arrest inside?! He is toying with the audience and showing new facets of cinema in a groundbreaking fashion. Every person’s perspective is shown in the film before it is over. The film is like an onion that reveals more and more layers as it unravels.